“How to limit risk of climate catastrophe
Comprehensive analysis of the odds of climate outcomes under different policy scenarios shows significant benefits from early actions.”
–David L. Chandler, MIT News Office

http://web.mit.edu/ newsoffice/ 2009/ climate-change-1002.html#

Second question: “is there that much left in the ground”. In a nutshell, yes. But not in the form of oil but rather mostly as coal and some as more exotic carbons such as shale oil and tar sands.

First question: “Is that right”. That is a maybe. One reason that it might take less is that the oceans may not be able to absorb as much CO2 as they have been. About half of the CO2 put into the air is absorbed by the oceans. As the oceans heat up and as they become saturated with CO2 they will absorb less CO2 and, if fact, might start releasing the CO2 that they previously absorbed.

Some of that is well beyond a hundred years from now. But the carbon in the atmosphere will stay there for centuries and the warm up will continue well beyond the end of this century, especially if we continue as we have been. And what will happen if the oceans start releasing their carbon into the air two or three centuries from now is anybody’s guess.

Our blog doesn’t like the url for some reason, but this study is from Ohio State University:

STUDY BOLSTERS GREENHOUSE EFFECT THEORY, SOLVES ICE AGE MYSTERY

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Critics who dismiss the importance of greenhouse gases as a cause of climate change lost one piece of ammunition this week. In a new study, scientists found further evidence of the role that greenhouse gases have played in Earth’s climate.

In Thursday’s issue of the journal Geology, Ohio State University scientists report that a long-ago ice age occurred 10 million years earlier than once thought. The new date clears up an inconsistency that has dogged climate change research for years

Don’t know much about it, myself. Hadn’t heard about it before. A 10 million year error in the timing of events that happened 450 million years ago is not really unreasonable, perhaps.

I know that CO2 levels have declined over time, and there have been times in the past when CO2 levels were much higher. But changes generally happened slowly, at rates of perhaps one percent every ten thousand years. And certainly, the natural feedback systems of the earth’s climate were active, and were hard at work keeping the system in control at all times, although perhaps drifting very slowly in response to changes in CO2 levels and perhaps small changes in carbon sequestration mechanisms.

What worries me is the rate of change, though.

We are changing CO2 levels at rates of up to one percent per year – perhaps 10,000 times as fast as has been common in the past.

A truck traveling one tenth of a mile per hour is not very dangerous. A truck traveling a thousand miles per hour is very dangerous indeed.

The system is out of control, IMO.

Summary of Gerhard Gerlich Criticism Greenhouse Effect
Posted by ReasonMcLucus at 08:19 on 21 Oct 2007
The following is a summary of the conclusions of
(Dr. Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner – “Falsification of the Atmospheric Greenhouse Effects Within the Framework of Physics”)

“5 Physicist’s Summary

A thorough discussion of the planetary heat transfer problem in the framework of theoretical
physics and engineering thermodynamics leads to the following results:

1. There are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effect, which explains the relevant physical phenomena. The terms \greenhouse effect” and \greenhouse gases” are deliberate misnomers.

2. There are no calculations to determinate an average surface temperature of a planet:
a) with or without atmosphere,
b) with or without rotation,
c) with or without infrared light absorbing gases.

The frequently mentioned difference of 33 C for the fictitious greenhouse effect of the atmosphere is therefore a meaningless number.

3. Any radiation balance for the average radiant flux is completely irrelevant for the determination of the ground level air temperatures and thus for the average value as well.

4. Average temperature values cannot be identifed with the fourth root of average values of the absolute temperature’s fourth power.

5. Radiation and heat flows do not determine the temperature distributions and their average values.

6. Re-emission is not reflection and can in no way heat up the ground-level air against the actual heat flow without mechanical work.

7. The temperature rises in the climate model computations are made plausible by a perpetuum mobile of the second kind [perpetual motion machine]. This is possible by setting the thermal conductivity in the atmospheric models to zero, an unphysical assumption. It would be no longer a perpetuum mobile of the second kind, if the average fictitious radiation balance, which has no physical justification anyway, was given up.

8. After Schack 1972 water vapor is responsible for most of the absorption of the infrared radiation in the Earth’s atmosphere. The wavelength of the part of radiation, which is absorbed by carbon dioxide is only a small part of the full infrared spectrum and does not change considerably by raising its partial pressure. Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects : : : 93

9. Infrared absorption does not imply “backwarming”. Rather it may lead to a drop of the temperature of the illuminated surface.

10. In radiation transport models with the assumption of local thermal equilibrium, it is assumed that the absorbed radiation is transformed into the thermal movement of all gas molecules. There is no increased selective re-emission of infrared radiation at the low temperatures of the Earth’s atmosphere.

11. In climate models, planetary or astrophysical mechanisms are not accounted for properly. The time dependency of the gravity acceleration by the Moon and the Sun (high tide and low tide) and the local geographic situation, which is important for the local climate, cannot be taken into account.

12. Detection and attribution studies, predictions from computer models in chaotic systems, and the concept of scenario analysis lie outside the framework of exact sciences, in particular theoretical physics.

13. The choice of an appropriate discretization method and the definition of appropriate dynamical constraints (flux control) having become a part of computer modelling is nothing but another form of data curve fitting. The mathematical physicist v. Neumann once said to his young collaborators: “If you allow me four free parameters I can build a mathematical model that describes exactly everything that an elephant can do. If you allow me a fifth free parameter, the model I build will forecast that the elephant will..fly.” (cf. Ref. [185].)

14. Higher derivative operators (e.g. the Laplacian) can never be represented on grids with wide meshes. Therefore a description of heat conduction in global computer models is impossible. The heat conduction equation is not and cannot properly be represented on grids with wide meshes.

15. Computer models of higher dimensional chaotic systems, best described by non-linear partial differential equations (i.e. Navier-Stokes equations), fundamental differ from calculations where perturbation theory is applicable and successive improvements of the predictions – by raising the computing power – are possible. At best, these computer models may be regarded as a heuristic game.

16. Climatology misinterprets unpredictability of chaos known as butter fly phenomenon as another threat to the health of the Earth. In other words: Already the natural greenhouse effect is a myth”

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Science and Technology, Greenhouse gas disproved, Gerhard Gerlich, Ralf D Tscheuschner

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Greenhouse; a deliberate misnomer!
BuilderBob 24 Feb 2008 13:14
Firstly, thank you for the summary. I tried reading the original paper and got lost in the maths.

With so much evidence against AGW, why is our government pushing the anti-CO2 agenda? Agreed we need to look after the planet as all resources are finite with an ever expanding population depending on these same resources.

By the way has anyone costed the carbon footprint of the wind turbines scheduled for construction if Waxman’s cap and trade bill passes?

I used to mourn the loss of chestnuts, elms and ash to blights and insects. Now I miss those days when in hindsight I was hopelessly naive.

Tipping Action!